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Ten31 hosted its latest virtual Tribe event for investors and portfolio companies, with this month’s session focused on the foundational bitcoin adage of “not your keys, not your coins.” Justine Harper of Unchained Capital and Rodolfo Novak of Coinkite came together for a lengthy and comprehensive discussion on the importance of self-custody, different methods for key ownership and related tradeoffs, and new features and setups coming to the market over time. As trusted third parties continue to prove extremely vulnerable and insecure, Ten31 and our portfolio companies remain focused on investing in tools and technology to scale a variety of self-custody solutions to a mass market audience.
Selected Portfolio News
Fold started a limited rollout of its Buy Bitcoin feature to allow users to buy sats directly in the Fold app:
Start9 launched v0.3.3 of embassyOS, which includes x86 support, allowing users to install the OS on common laptops and desktops:
Following the launch of Strike’s Send Globally feature integration with Bitnob last week, UK-based CoinCorner also launched an option for cross-border remittance in partnership with Bitnob:
Ahead of the holidays, Unchained announced a gift option for its Concierge Onboarding program:
Media
Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, returned to CNBC to discuss Strike’s new Send Globally feature and bitcoin’s differentiation from “crypto.”
Phil Geiger and Jeff Vandrew of Unchained joined Preston Pysh’s podcast to discuss bitcoin inheritance planning.
Giga co-founders Brent Whitehead and Matt Lohstroh appeared on the Energizing Bitcoin podcast to discuss vertically integrated mining and the waste gas opportunity for bitcoin.
Tom Masiero of Standard Bitcoin and Marty Bent joined the new POD256 mining podcast to discuss the recent downward difficulty adjustment and more.
Marty also discussed Ten31, mining, and creating bitcoin content on the Builders in Bitcoin podcast.
River Financial published a lengthy report considering what bitcoin mining might look like when the network eventually reaches a hashrate of one zettahash per second.
Market Updates
The latest CPI reading for November pointed to continued gradual deceleration of officially reported inflation, with CPI up 7.1% Y/Y (vs 7.3% consensus estimate and 7.8% in October).
Meanwhile, the FOMC raised the target federal funds rate by the expected 50bps to a range of 4.25-4.5%. The latest dot plot pointed to a target FFR of 5-5.5% for 2023.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, Japan’s largest electric utility, announced plans to begin mining bitcoin with excess power in partnership with TRIPLE-1, a semiconductor developer.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas a day before he was due to testify before Congress.
Remittance company Wise suspended transfers in the cedi (Ghana’s local currency) due to rapid appreciation against the USD, highlighting the need for the permissionless global remittances enabled by bitcoin and lightning.
The ECB continues at an unprecedented pace with raising the interest rate by 50bps this past week to 2.5%. Christine Lagarde provided guidance for a terminal 23’ rate of 4% in her speech on Dec. 15th.
Regulatory Update
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall introduced a blatantly unconstitutional and profoundly invasive bill that would seek to eliminate privacy for virtually every user and developer of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. The legislation would require anyone who maintains or validates transactions on a public blockchain to register as a financial institution, taking on all the information-gathering obligations that designation entails.
The Bank for International Settlements finalized a policy to place a 2% limit on banks’ Tier 1 capital held in bitcoin or “Group 2 cryptoassets” (up from the 1% initially proposed, but lower than banks’ counterproposal of 5%).
Coinbase reported that total demands for customer information from law enforcement agencies were up 66% in the period from October 2021 through September 2022. The US, UK, Germany, and Spain accounted for the vast majority of inbounds.
Noteworthy
Maersk and IBM announced they will discontinue their blockchain project TradeLens early next year, the latest casualty in a long line of defunct permissioned blockchains for corporate use.
Interest payments on US public debt continue to balloon to all-time highs and remain on a path to be the largest line item in the federal budget.
Ziya Sadr, an Iranian bitcoin advocate and educator arrested in September, was freed earlier this week.
Travel
Nashville BitDevs, January 10
Nashville Mining and Energy Summit, January 12-13
Ten31 Tribe Austin, March 16
Ten31 Tribe Nashville, June 14